 Eric Crowell outlines the investments and relationships bringing success to this Midwestern health system.
Duplication in healthcare isn’t always a negative thing. For folks in the western suburbs of Des Moines, Iowa, duplication will actually work to their benefit.
 Eric Crowell, President and CEO
“In the late ’80s, Iowa Health leaders identified the trend of Des Moines’ corporate, retail, and residential populations moving west into the suburbs,” said Eric Crowell, president and CEO. But it wasn’t until January 2002 that the community-based health system filed its letter of intent to build an 83-bed hospital on what is now known as Lakeview Medical Campus. In the interim, the system opened a physician office building, an outpatient orthopedic surgery center, and a joint venture ambulatory surgery center on the 80-acre campus.
“For our first filing with the state health facilities council, we talked about need,” explained Sid Ramsey, vice president of development and marketing. “There was a lot of sentiment that one hospital would be sufficient for the suburbs. The question was which hospital system should have the right to build that hospital? We discussed a jointly owned and operated hospital with another health system but rejected that idea following discussions with the Department of Justice.”
Iowa Health’s first proposal was rejected, but Iowa Health was successful in getting its second CON (certificate of need) application approved last November. By the first quarter of 2010, 95-bed, $118 million Myers Hospital will be open. And although it took a long time to work through discussions, come to a resolution with the community and payors, and explore a jointly owned hospital with the Department of Justice, the result is a win-win for both health systems as both will be able to serve their patients in an ever-growing market.
The number of beds Iowa Health will initially open is still conservative for the population base of the western suburbs, and future growth is expected. Consequently, neither redundancy nor duplication will be an issue. “In healthcare, there are many services you want to duplicate to improve access, such as mammography,” Crowell said. “Duplication improves access, prevention, screening, and detection and gives our community a better chance to stay in good health.”
Hub and spoke
Myers Hospital, named after Michael R. Myers, a philanthropist who donated $15 million to building the facility in 2003, will be more than a chance to grow. It will be an opportunity to complement the services of Iowa Health’s three other hospitals, including 447 staffed-bed, tertiary care center Iowa Methodist Medical Center, which includes one of only two Level I trauma centers in the state; 219-bed Iowa Lutheran Hospital; 85-bed Blank Children’s Hospital; and more than 35 primary care and pediatric offices.
The western hospital, Crowell said, will treat 80% of the typical needs for the community with its diagnostic and clinical capabilities, such as medical/surgical, ED, OB, orthopedics, and hip and joint replacement, but Methodist will remain the hub and tertiary anchor.
“We will not recreate a Level I trauma center, nor will we recreate a children’s hospital,” he continued. “Those services, as well as transplants and major surgeries, will remain in downtown Des Moines. For complex, people-intensive services, it’s best to keep your facility centralized to maintain best-in-class service.”
Strategic investments
Myers will be the newest hospital in the system, but it is not the only piece of the Iowa Health family benefiting from capital investments. Iowa Methodist is in the midst of a $19 million renovation project to create a new surgical and cardiovascular center of excellence, and the system has invested in the daVinci Surgical System’s robotic surgical equipment at Blank Children’s Hospital and Iowa Methodist.
Iowa Health has also invested in residency education. It currently has 87 residents-in-training in five major areas, including pediatric and internal medicine, family practice, transitional medicine, and surgery. “We’re evaluating psychiatric clerkships, and we’re looking to establish a fellowship in cardiology,” Crowell said. In addition, all Iowa Health hospitals and doctor’s offices are connected electronically with Allscripts technology, and the newest satellite clinics were opened without medical records rooms. “When you go into these offices, there isn’t a big chart room with people running around. It’s all electronic.”
The system also continually ranks above national and state averages for its national quality indicators and is continuing down that path by beginning to work with Zynx evidence-based clinical support product line, a product currently used by Mayo Clinic. The protocols are designed to create standards and predictability in care patterns, impacting outcomes and improving the speed and accuracy at which patients are treated.
Investments such as these have put Iowa Health at the head of the pack from an IT standpoint, as the system has been named among the top 100 Most Wired Hospitals and Health Systems by Hospitals and Health Networks three times. But according to Crowell, bricks and mortar and technology don’t work without the dedication of a talented workforce. “We believe the Myers Hospital is simply one more tool that provides a great staff an opportunity to work their magic and miracles,” he concluded.
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